Having recruited a dozen households for rooftop solar in February, the first installation began in early March. Seven months later, we have ten completed installations enjoying electricity from the sun.
The last two installs were in late August and early September.
Our eleventh household had some challenges with PECO’s transformer supplying their house. This has caused a major delay, but they are now waiting on PECO to do some work and should be able to move forward soon.
The first install, completed in late April, has produced seven megawatt hours of electricity so far! The homegrown electricity not only runs their household, it also charges the family car, a Nissan Leaf, while pushing the surplus generation back onto the electrical grid. Their monthly electric bill has dropped to $8.45, the minimum to maintain an account with PECO.
If you like charts, you’ll love the one below about this same household. Yellow is daytime electric use; blue is nighttime electric use. Columns are the 23 months before their installation went live, and the few months after. You’ll notice the expected seasonal variation, but see what happens after April. At night, they still get electricity from the grid. But their monthly average usage is negative, and has been for the six months so far. They are thrilled with their decision.
Pushing electricity onto the grid has many steps: Make the decision, Sign the contract, Obtain interconnection go-ahead from PECO, Obtain permit from the City, Order the solar panels & components, Install the system,
Coordinate City inspection, Coordinate meter replacement by PECO, Register for SRECS (Solar Renewable Energy Certificates). Remember if you are considering solar, you only need to do the first two steps. The installer takes care of the rest!
Below is the chart showing all the steps, completed and not, for each household in our first round. The steps are down the side, and the number of households is along the bottom. Soon, this chart will be all green!
NW Philly Solar Co-op 